21 Feb Profit Calculation
While we do not advocate the below accounting system, we find the owner’s perspective amusing and informative.
A Greek restaurant owner had his own bookkeeping system. He kept his accounts payable in a cigar box on the left-hand side of his cash register, his daily cash returns in a cash drawer of the register, and his receipts for paid bills in a shoe box on the right side of the cash register. When his youngest son graduated as a CPA, he was appalled by his father’s primitive bookkeeping methods. “I don’t know how you can run a business that way,” he said. “How do you know what your profit is?”
“Well, son,” the father replied, “when I got off the boat from the old country, I had nothing but the clothes on my back. Today, your brother is a doctor. Your sister is a speech therapist, and you’re a CPA. Your mother and I have a nice car, a city house, a country house, and plenty of money for retirement. We have a good business and everything is paid for. Add all that together, subtract the ‘clothes on my back,’ and there is your profit.”
